Today, disposable articles, such as diapers, adult incontinence briefs, sanitary napkins and tampons, are widely used in infant and toddler care and in the care of incontinent adults as a means of containing, isolating and disposing of bodily wastes. These articles have generally replaced reusable, washable cloth garments as the preferred means for these applications because of their convenience and reliability.
While many advancements have been made in the field of disposable articles for both infants and adults, which have enabled them to become widely preferred over conventional cloth garments, a number of problems still exist. Among the problems experienced with these disposable articles are leakage of bodily waste (e.g., urine, feces, menses), skin rash and irritation, contamination of large areas of the wearer's skin with feces, difficult cleanup of bodily wastes such as feces, waste odor, lack of customization to individuals (e.g., fit), etc.
Attempts have been made to address these problems. Super absorbent polymers, for example, have been used to increase the ability of an absorbent article to absorb and retain urine. Barrier leg cuffs have also been used to improve fit and reduce leakage. U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,003, entitled "Contractible Side Portions For Disposable Diaper," issued to Kenneth B. Buell on Jan. 14, 1975, for example, describes an elasticized leg cuff disposable diaper that has achieved wide acceptance and commercial success. Disposable articles have also used pockets, barriers, etc. to contain and prevent leakage of feces from the article. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,278, entitled "Absorbent Article Having Dual Cuffs," issued to Michael I. Lawson on Sep. 22, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,795,454, entitled "Absorbent Article Having Leakage-Resistant Dual Cuffs," issued to Jerry L. Dragoo on Jan. 3, 1989; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,671, entitled "Absorbent Article Having A Pocket Cuff With An Apex," issued to Dreier on Jul. 30, 1996. Disposable articles having a selectively expandable or inflatable component that is activated at the point of use or in response to an activating liquid such as water or urine to provide fecal void space or displacement of a topsheet to improve fit have also been disclosed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,459, entitled "Disposable Absorbent Article Having an Inflatable Spacer," issued to Gary D. LaVon et al. on Jul. 19, 1994 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,674, entitled "Disposable Absorbent Article Having a Sealed Expandable Component," issued to Gary D. Lavon et al. on May 28, 1996 describe disposable absorbent articles having a component that is expandable at the point of use or expands in response to an activating liquid such as water or urine. These expandable components, however, are problematic in that they either require action by the caregiver to activate the components or operate continuously and require too much of a liquid activator to fully expand because the expansion is proportional to the amount of the liquid activator. In addition, self-contracting leg gathers have been disclosed that react with a liquid activator such as water or urine. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,246,900, entitled "Diaper Including Moisture-Responsive Seal Means," issued to Friedrich-Wilhelm Schroder on Jan. 27, 1981. Again, these self-contracting gathers have the problem that they either require action by the caregiver to activate the components or operate continuously and require too much of a liquid activator to fully contract because the contraction is proportional to the amount of the liquid activator.